Reading each chapter, making amendments, additions, deletions, corrections, and then feeding them through grammar checker, Prowritingaid.com. It removes unintended repetitions, weak verbs, and many other small errors you can miss when reading from the screen. It’s pretty intense. But I’m up to page 329 of 411. Twelve chapters to go; mostly in the denouement now, so building more tension as I move along.
I’m printing off each chapter and passing it to my independent reader, to look for inconsistencies, confusions, occasional homophonic substitutions, the odd grammatical fail and anything else she feels worth mentioning. So far, these have been few. I then put right those things she points out that I agree with.
Final stage is reading the whole book, aloud, from print. That identifies awkward sentences and tonal inconsistencies.
I still need to come up with a good title: ironically, the working title doesn’t work. Brainstorming might sort that! Maybe a visit to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations for an apposite quote. TBA.
Then my publisher, currently gnashing teeth with impatience, can have the MS. We’re hoping to launch at Fantasticon 2017. This annual celebration of science fiction, fantasy and gaming is held in Hull, this year’s UK City of Culture, and takes place on September 2nd and 3rd.
I’ll be there. Perhaps we’ll meet there!
